A variety of dispensers have been widely used over the years for dispensing different size containers and packaged goods. In general, most of these dispensers have been designed for automatically dispensing the packages by activating a push button or by pulling or pushing a lever. The packaged articles themselves are usually stacked in one or more chutes or compartments which are rotatably mounted on a rotatable tray. Because of their sizes, however, such dispensers have been mostly limited in their use to industrial institutions such as supermarkets, commercial buildings and other similar locations.
Numerous patents have described the different packaging and vending machines which have been available in the art. For example, a gum vending machine was described early in U.S. Pat. No. 1,121,804, issued Dec. 22, 1914, and a vending apparatus has been described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,208,298 issued Jul. 16, 1940. The apparatus described therein dispenses small packages of nuts or confections.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,161,320 issued Dec. 15, 1964 describes a dispenser which stores bread and dispenses individual slices therefrom.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,782,594 issued Jan. 1, 1974 describes a chip holder and dispenser. The chips are stacked in vertical chutes and a mechanical chip dispensing means is employed to eject the chips from the chutes one at a time.
A more recent patent, i.e., U.S. Pat. No. 5,065,897 issued Nov. 19, 1991 describes a dispenser for stacked articles such as cigarette box. The dispenser includes two levels of individual dispensing modules, each module containing vertically stacked articles. A dispensing mechanism selectively withdraws an article from one stack holder and conveys the article to an open center from where it is removed. The individual modules are arranged in two levels, and when the open center of the top and bottom modules are aligned, the article dispensed from the top level module falls through the open center of the corresponding bottom level modules.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,261,564 issued Nov. 16, 1993 describes a drum-type vending machine for vending small articles such as snack-size candy. The articles are held in a plurality of rotating bins, and a dispensing mechanism in the form of a coin slide and a vertical chute permit the lower-most article to be dispensed from the bin which has been rotated to its dispensing position.
Notwithstanding the variety of available dispensers and vending machines, so, far as it is known there is no simple and economical dispenser for dispensing small packages such as tea bags and like articles, for use in various homes and restaurants.
Accordingly, it is a general object of this invention to provide such dispensers which are relatively small, compact and easy to use in homes and restaurants, and thus constitutes another staple home kitchen product.
It is another object of this invention to provide such dispensers which are relatively small, compact and easy to use in homes and restaurants, and thus can constitute another staple home kitchen product.
The foregoing and other objects of this invention will be more fully comprehended from the following detailed description of the drawings.